Novel layered scalable video coding transmission over MIMO wireless systems with partial CSI and adaptive channel selection

In this paper, we present a novel layered scalable video transmission scheme over multi-input multi-output (MIMO) wireless systems. The proposed layered scalable video transmission scheme is able to adaptively select the MIMO sub-channels for prioritized delivery of layered video signals based on only estimated partial channel state information (CSI). This scheme is fundamentally different from open loop (OL)-MIMO systems such as V-BLAST in which the CSI is only available at the receiver side. Without CSI at the transmitter, data sequences in OL-MIMO are transmitted simultaneously with equal power via multiple antennas. Therefore, OL-MIMO systems are not appropriate for transmitting compressed video data that need prioritized transmission. In this research, we assume that partial CSI, or the ordering of each sub-channel's SNR strength, is available at the transmitting end through simple estimation and feedback. The adaptive channel selection (ACS) algorithm we developed in this research shall switch the bit-stream automatically to match the ordering of SNR strength for the sub-channels. Essentially, we will launch higher priority layer bit-stream into higher SNR strength sub-channel by the proposed ACS algorithm. In this fashion, we can implicitly achieve unequal error protection (UEP) for layered scalable video coding transmission over MIMO system. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme is able to achieve UEP with partial CSI and the reconstructed video PSNRs demonstrate the performance improvement of the proposed system as compared with OL-MIMO system.